What's going on?!

Apparently, Canadian university students are experiencing crises of mental health issues.  Huh!?  What's going on?  When I was at university, no one had these issues -- at least no one I knew.  How did we handle pressure?  Hit the student bars, as I recall.

It's all very sad because frankly, unless you are going into medicine, dentistry, engineering, architecture or law, don't bother with university.  All other disciplines are luxurious wastes of time, in my opinion.  I mean, fascinating and charming though it may be, what can you do with a degree in philosophy?

I took English, which was useless even back in 1968 when I graduated from Carleton.  We had brilliant professors, mainly from England, and I loved it all, but B.A. in English?  Where does that take you?  Luckily, I landed a job in the advertising department of IBM Canada.  But that was an embarrassing fluke.  I had moved to Toronto and pounded the pavement to a bunch of advertising agencies on the advice of a then-boyfriend, who worked in one.  He suggested I go through magazines and re-write ads and present them to creative directors who interviewed me.  So I did.

After getting rejection after rejection, I ended up in the office of one kind, middle-aged man who again told me to forget it.  At that point, laid low and rejected yet again, I burst into tears.  The poor guy was so taken aback, he jumped up and said, "You poor thing, you're probably hungry.  I guess you haven't eaten in a while.  Let me buy you lunch."  So he did.  After lunch, he phoned one of their biggest clients, which happened to be IBM, and got me an interview.

I went and got the job.  How?  By crying.  I then moved on to Maclean-Hunter, the 'Mad Men' of the day, where I had a ball and indulged many very naughty, sixties things.  We all smoked all the time, drank in the office, partied and....well...."socialized" very intimately with each other.  I also learned to be a fairly decent writer, thanks to a brutal editor named Jean Portugal.  Her red pen had a field day with my copy because in those days of hot type, every word cost money.  To this day, I have yet to read anything I don't mentally cut to shreds.

So, to those innocent university students, toiling away in emotional and psychological agony, I say:  Get yourself to a community college and get a degree in something which will make you employable.  Please, please don't keep committing suicide.  The other thing you might consider is falling on your knees and asking God for help.  As scripture says, ask and the door shall be opened.  Might put a whole bunch of psychiatrists out of business. 

A great loss

Journalist Christie Blatchford has died.  I am stunned.  I knew her (sort-of) when I worked for Maclean-Hunter in Toronto in the late sixties and early seventies.  I was on the editorial staff of a number of trade publications, but Christie was already writing for consumer publications.  Back then, I was part of a team that organized an editorial conference and I invited her to speak on a panel.  The topic was, "Interviewing men, why women do it better."  Can you believe that?!

I actually believed -- and still believe -- that women are better at getting to the heart of men than male journalists are.  Something about sexuality and male/female stuff is at work there.  She completely agreed and was so great on the panel.  The fact that I put myself on the same panel surprises me, when I look back.  I thought we were about the same age, but it turns out I am four years older.

I admired everything about her.  We actually went out drinking after the conference was over.  Can you believe that?!  She died of lung cancer, can't remember if she smoked, but back then we all did.  We all smoked everywhere-all-the-time; the office was 'Mad Men'.  I know that a number of years ago she decided to get fit and started running regularly.  But the smoking must have caught up with her.

One of the things I do remember was (is this grammatically correct?  Anyone?) her columns on the death of her mother, not that long ago.  It was around the time I had lost mine and she talked about how she did her mother's laundry separately from hers until she finally just did both together.  I did that too, for a while.  Weird.  She was a bitch, but in a good way.  She had definitely earned it!

She was a role model because she was so "male" -- something B always tells me I am, while still being "female".  Go figure.  B is on the board of our condo corporation and the rest of the board is made up of all women.  They all vote as a block against B because he is a man.  I got so fed up, I wrote a letter to one who might still be young enough to maybe "get it".  I am sure Christie would have agree with what I have written.  Did this 35-year-old woman even reply?  No.  Here is my note to this misguided young woman:
________________________________________     

Good morning, blank,

I just have to say, as a professional woman who went to the barricades in the late sixties to protect and expand the rights of working women, I am absolutely dismayed at how unprofessional and personal the women on this board behave.  Brian was criticized and attacked for flagging the financial irregularities here and calling for an independent audit.  But instead of being respectfully heeded, he has been called confused, sad and suspicious by two women and when his suspicions were verified, neither had the integrity or grace to step up and apologize. 

As a matter of fact, the woman loudest, most off-base and personal in her comments has been on the board for 17 consecutive years, while all this has been going on.  Perhaps it is time for her to look in the mirror and take some responsibility for how this complex has been managed on her watch.  

I, and others in my cohort, did not fight for women’s rights to have females be so unprofessional and petty.  The fact that the women on this board are incapable of professional and gender-blind conduct is not what we fought for.

I write this personally, not as any defence of Brian (who does not know of this letter and can certainly defend himself, if he so chooses), but as a condemnation of how these two women behave.  Any woman unable to be objective renders herself a disgrace to our shared gender, in my view, and unworthy of what we fought for way back then. 

Never join in a “women’s chorus” just because you are of the same gender.  Be on the side of truth and integrity.  I hope you take this in the spirit with which it is intended.  Over my long career, I have counselled many young women who have gone on to break out of female stereotyping and made something of themselves.    

Regards,

Nancy 
____________________________________
Rest in Peace, Christie

This is untitled because I am so enraged.  Can't think of a title that would help?!  Here we have some poor schlep arrested by the RCMP for moving illegal blockades from tracks or roadways so he could get through illegal barricades.

And they arrest this law-abiding citizen and molly-coddle the criminal natives!?!?!?  OMG!?!?

Native after native after Indian is on the airwaves saying that they only obey Indigenous laws.  Whaaaat!!??  There is no such thing in Canadian society as Indigenous Law.  Maybe on the reserves, but in the rest of Canada, it doesn't exist.  Indian reserves are on Crown Land given them for their exclusive use.  It is not "unceded territory", as they claim.  It's Crown Land!

To hear all the Indian female and male hysterics raving on about the whole mess and claiming they are right -- after the courts have said they aren't -- is outrageous.  How in Gawd's name did Pam Palmeter get a law degree and a PhD?!  She is also a professor of something-or-other.  Completely ignorant about the Rule of Law and the Canadian Constitution.  Frankly, why does the government bow to these criminals?  They neither identify as "Canadian", nor vote, so who cares?!

I am so sick of it.  Here they are:

        

The gall

So, a guy from Sri Lanka comes to Canada seven years ago on a work permit, then promptly sponsors his wife and kid, then she promptly pumps out two more kids in Canada and now -- of course -- they want to stay.  Gee, big surprise!  They have been ordered back and now they media are wailing, the wife is crying and saying, "We followed all the rules, why do we have to go back?"  Because those are the rules, but you thought you'd skirt them by having a couple more kids as your ticket to bypass the system.

Same as all the border strollers.  What have there been, more than 50,000 of those?  And the thousands who have been unsuccessful and ordered to return, most have simply gone underground and disappeared. 

It's absolutely wrong, yet no one does anything about it.  As for the Sri Lankan wife, who claims she wants to be a Canadian and stay here, what has she been doing?  Teaching traditional Sri Lankan language and dance to other Sri Lankans in Canada.  How does that indicate she wants to integrate?  It doesn't.

When I think back to B's Scottish nephew who was refused by Canadian immigration authorities, when I think back to B's late British mother who was also refused -- even though we stepped up to sponsor both -- and when I think back to B himself, whose family waited in the immigration queue for seven years, it makes me wild.

Canada is such an effed up country. 

And the winner is......

Melania!  Of all the women at Trump's 'State of the Union' speech last night, the biggest winner was the First Lady herself.

There she was, looking absolutely gorgeous sitting in the presidential box.  By the way, ladies, she's living in the White House, she has the wardrobe, she has the jewellery and she has the president's ear.  This immigrant girl has captured the brass ring!  Sorry, all you bleating in the cheap seats, you are losers and you essentially have no power.

Pelosi's display was a disgrace, not only to her office, but also to her gender.  Is that the behaviour she wants young women and girls to emulate?  Sitting there sneering at the president and ripping up his speech in a grotesque display of hubris and post-menopausal hysteria.  I was disgusted.

And what was with all the harridans garbed in white, sitting in a block on the democratic side?  What was the white supposed to mean?  Purity and perfection?  Just appalling.  They looked like nothing more than a herd of lost heifers waiting for the field hand to tell them where to go next.  If Pelosi represents the best the democrats have got -- and if the Iowa vote is any indication -- the Democrats are doomed.  It'll be four more years. 

And there was their ignorant field hand, with her facelift(s) and her dyed hair, signalling which way they should look and when to clap.  As a woman, I was disgusted.  No, we certainly haven't "come a long way, baby". 

Here's the problem

Two headlines tell you what's wrong with Canada's natives:

Enough said.

Just got a PhD

Yep, must have because I know how to get kids to eat everything on their plates.  Tucked away in either The Globe or The Herald was a little article about how some researchers somewhere are trying to figure out how to solve the problem of the "picky eater".  Their "solution" was to give the kid three spoonfuls of something they liked and then three empty spoonfuls.  The theory was that because they ate the three they liked, they would simply be conditioned to chow down on the empty bites that followed in quick succession.

How stupid is that.

Any kid I have ever fed knows in a nano-second if he/she doesn't like what he/she just tasted.  I used to make all my baby food and as long as I mixed in a sweet potato (yam), that kid ate anything I gave it.  And I'm talkin' onions, potatoes, carrots, garlic, liver, kidneys, fish, brussel sprouts, broccoli, spinach -- anything.

As a kid got older, if it didn't like what was on offer for dinner, he/she was served it for breakfast.  Cold.  "Can you please heat this up," was requested once.  "No, this is not supposed to be pleasant."  That only had to happen once with each kid and subsequent plates of.....whatever.....were cleaned with rapidity.

I have actually heard mothers lamenting the fact that they have to make three and four meals at dinner because this one didn't like this and that one didn't like that....blah, blah, blah.  What is wrong with these women?!  As I kid, I can remember sitting in front of a plate of liver until 11 o'clock at night.  But I ate it because any such test of wills was always won by my mother.

As to eating disorders?  All these spoiled brats need to think of are the billions around the world who are starving.  That would do it, in my view. 

So, that's my PhD thesis, done and dusted.